When you sleep
by sumomo-yuki
Summary: Three shots of the long journey they have been through together. Fai's POV. An outline of their relationship, or how Fai's views on Kurogane would change throughout their stay in Outo, Tokyo and, finally, Clow. Mild shounen-ai. Spoilers for the manga.


_Author's Notes:_

_I wrote this one for the Livejournal Secret Santa kurofai event. I had been asked to create something with a fluffy kurofai moment in it, and then the story turned out like this. You have to wait for the fluff until the very end of the piece. There's no good fluff without some good angst as a starter._

_Feel free to comment and review. Critical remarks are welcome, flaming is not. Don't like the pairing - don't read, and so on._

_Many thanks to my English translation beta-reader, Specter Queen on deviantart. _

**Outo Country**

I'm watching you when you sleep. I guess there's nothing extraordinary about it. I've been doing it roughly every morning for some time now, since we set out on our journey. Things somehow turned out like this. We ended up as travel companions, even though we're just a couple of strangers who seem to have nothing in common, and who would have nothing to do with each other, had it not been for this stroke of coincidence that pushed them towards this journey, so quirky a coincidence that it almost seems funny. It seemed to me that little by little we have grown accustomed to each other's presence. I thought that initial clashes, resulting from both parts being drastically ill-suited to each other, had been steadily dying out, allowing the entirety to work in slightly better harmony...

We have come to share each and every day with each other, and each and every step we are forced to take together reminds me how different we are.

We have also come to share the nights, the way the nights would be shared by a couple of strangers made to sleep in the same room. Once the nighttime silence falls around us, one could stop paying any attention that you are here at all. When it comes to my cheerful, enthusiastic "Goodnight!", you either reply with some vague grumble or ignore it completely. You never really reply to my greeting, much less greet me first out of your own initiative, and actually it's understood. After all, why should someone like you wish anybody good night? Someone that strong, self- sufficient, and independent; someone who joins a group of people just to deal with his own business by doing so, and under no circumstances to help them out – doesn't have to wish anybody good night, nor wish anybody anything at all. You don't have to make sure by such minor but kind acts that the atmosphere around him is pleasant, and the people around him like him and trust him. Someone like you doesn't depend at all on such rubbish, like people's fondness of him and the profits he might gain out of it. That's precisely because you're that strong.

On the other hand, someone who worries about good night wishes may only be a weed that's constantly plotting something behind others' back, weaving one intrigue after another, and so as not to look suspicious, he puts on the mask of a jester. And then he plays with great skill; the happy one, the considerate one, the pleasant one – the one who's everyone's best friend.

Actually, that's not the only thing he hides. Even now, as the nighttime rest has been going on for quite a few hours, and the first rays of springtime dawn have begun to shine through the faraway horizon, I've been fighting, with futile efforts, against my insomnia. I lift my eyelids every once in a while just to make sure if it's not yet the right time to get up and finally put an end to my nighttime torture. And the first thing I see every time I open my eyes is you.

Isn't it ironic that it must be you and no one else?

I must admit that until now I underestimated you. Instinctively I thought that you were hiding yourself well, but then again with your earnest, straightforward self there's no way you could use any tricks such as hiding yourself, or playing a role before the others. But still, you managed to deceive me, even if that was not what you meant to do. My evaluation of you after the first moments, scenes, days of our acquaintanceship was single-minded. To me you were no more than a grumpy, savage serviceman, oh-so-convinced about himself being the king of the world as long as he had his sword in his hand, too stupid to notice his own limits. There were two basic characteristics to you: an impressive range of sword techniques followed by your tiny brains. Or at least I thought that to describe you, this would suffice entirely. I couldn't help but wonder why on Earth Fei Wang would warn me so much, and have me pay attention to you like this. "Should the brat sent by the witch get in our way, then don't hesitate; just kill him." – he preached, preparing me to meet a dangerous foe, worthy of me. When I met you years after that, I thought it was some kind of mockery. Not that I had anything against it; a tiny bit of comedy never did any harm, and comedy indeed is something my life has always been missing. And so I had to provide my life with bits of comedy, making a clown or an idiot out of myself. I was grateful then that for a change you provided me with the farce, and brought me just a little relief in such a natural way.

And then finally, here in this country, you made me realize how wrong I was. I've begun to feel really uneasy. Until now I was just reckless, convinced that nobody was paying attention to me nor felt suspicious towards even my oddest ways. I felt really safe.

Then came the moment when I let myself get hounded and hurt by those funny little "demons" existing in this world. I did it just out of a whim, just because I suddenly felt I had no more will to fight, no more will to try, no more will to wade further into this marsh of cowardice and deception I had been drowning into ever since I sold the remains of my self-respect in exchange for the naive hope that someday the miracle will come true.

Then there was the slight prickle of disappointment as I realized that after all, straining my tendon was the worst I could get. A smile without pretense, thickly covering an expression of dull pain on my face – and the surprisingly cold touch of the wooden sword on my neck, accompanied by just as cold of a look of blood-red eyes.

Lively, pulsating, full of passion and determination – such would be this blood; and I probably don't have even a drop of such blood left in my veins.

"Those who don't even care to live their life properly, even though they still have days to live, are the ones I hate the most."

What do you mean? Why do you assault me? My life has been long over. And may my name, the name you know me for, be the best proof of it.

But...yes, you're right, absolutely right. You have discovered the truth about me. The most secret truth, the deepest truth; the one nobody was to have access to.

You scared me. From now on, I'm never going to feel so sure in this group anymore. I'm not going to feel so free and uninhibited; how could I tell if someone's not watching me right now? Or that someone's gaze isn't looking through all my lies and games?...That someone already knows exactly what kind of man I am, and how far this man is from the childish, happy-go-lucky guy who feels at home with everyone, who's having fun anywhere he goes, and more than that, he's kind, considerate, and has no requirements whatsoever towards his companions?...

"Then it seems I'm the type you hate the most!"

...Perhaps the pair of ruby eyes, so haughty and full of despise, keep staring at me, even now from behind your closed eyelids. Perhaps even now that you sleep you're alert and keen, and you know that I'm not asleep, you figure out what I'm thinking about...

I really have to be on my guard. I admit my mistake. Maybe I have just been alone for too long, and now I have failed to notice when exactly you managed to approach me this close.

**Acid Tokyo**

I can't sleep, but I know that I can't show it. The people around me, considerate about the state I'm in, worry about me. The people who wish me well, people of kind and generous hearts, are afraid that I may never recover after such shock that befell my body and my soul, and that unless I let myself rest and rebuild my vital strength my fate will be most certainly doomed.

These good people are right and at the same time are wrong, depending on how you look at it. Depending on what they mean by "doom" or "recovery". According to me there's no way back from the bottom I reached, no way to recover. And as for my doom, it came to be a long time ago, irreversible and definite. And everything that happened after that belonged ( and still does ) to nothing more than artificially sustained life, an empty shell under which nothing exists, or at least has no right to.

Once ... – once, I say? It was only a few days ago, and yet I feel as if it had happened ages ago, in a completely different, strange world ... – replying to my "You know I cannot die, I thought I told you so", you remarked correctly. "Right, you can't die at your own hand, but to let yourself be killed by another is a different matter". The sole and only truth was, as always, on your side. As always, you saw right through me.

As always...

...you did just about everything so that things wouldn't work out my way.

The wise one, the responsible one, the brave and courageous one, the one looking danger straight into its eyes, the one spitting the fear straight in its face. You always know best. You can always make the correct decision in the split of a second, and approximate in a critical moment exactly what step should be justified. Everything differs you from me. And most probably this is why I am still alive, against my own will and to the world's general misfortune.

See, even in my life there were such moments when I tried to believe in myself and the sense of my existence. I rebelled against my fate, objecting it, asserting that a man cannot be merely a living curse, or that the mere fact that you were born – independent, after all, of your will and your intentions – cannot be burdened with the stigma of a sin. Yes, such moments happened. But destiny would never fail to have me reject my pride and come to my senses. It proved to me in a cool and firm manner how wrong I was, and how unreasonably high my self-evaluation was. To put it in easy words: everytime it seemed to me that everything was going to be alright, that this time I would make it because I loved and was loved in return, it was precisely then that my presence would impell the worst luck, and along with it the numerous tragedies that befell those dearest to my heart. And I was positive that this time my task was easy, as my King turned into a lunatic, as I was forced to choose the lesser evil by defeating him and putting him to sleep, and would then keep running away to many different worlds so I couldn't meet him. With my King I lost the last and only person in the universe I really cared for, so my task did seem easy. It was just to run, run, keep on running, and to make sure at the same time that the things were going smoothly, step by step, drawing me closer to my ultimate goal, which was bringing my brother back to life. This time I needed no more dear ones to keep me alive and for whose sake I could carry on with my life; absolutely not. Quite the contrary, this time the one and only ally of mine was my solitude, my only accomplice at my wicked tricks, plotted under that permanent mask of everyone's nicest, reliable friend.

And out of numerous reasons, you were the last one I would have liked to see as one of my dear ones.

You were not in my plans!

You're not welcome in my heart!

...But every time I try to ban you from my heart, you do everything against my distance, against my firm resolution not to make anyone close to me unhappy again. You're always there when and where there's nobody with me. That which nobody ever notices, you always see so clearly. You keep saving me time and again, even though nobody asks you to.

And now, because of it all, there's your blood flowing in my veins, and I can still feel its bitter aftertaste in my mouth. It was exactly the same as your gaze, even its colour was identical to the colour of your eyes. I'm sentenced for you – or wait, rather it's you who sentenced yourself to me, isn't it?...

I know that you still are thinking that my attempts to escape my own life are merely unjustified whims of a weakling who finds it more convenient to give up than to stand up and fight. Perhaps you even are correct, but if so, then wouldn't you please just try to...respect it?...Respect my will and my withdrawal, and for once consider that this is my life and maybe after all I do know better? Maybe all these universal and simple truths which you have come to comprehend just with the purity and straightforwardness of your character do not necessarily apply to my case?...

"I don't give a damn about that." "That's right, so don't waste your time worrying about me, okay?..." "I say I don't give a damn about your past, so clear your head and face the present." And to think you told me once you didn't feel like saying pretty words – you liar...

Your plain, rough words are at the same time the most beautiful ones. And yet they are the most cruel, the hardest to accept by the likes of me.

To make me stay alive by force, against my own will, to summon even more tragedies to this world and a load of problems and ungratefulness for yourself – what on Earth are you up to? What the hell do you want to prove? It can't be that you only want to show that you're right and the truth is with you, can it? I mean, it's obvious anyway that you're always right, you didn't have to prove it to me yet again in such a drastic way, with such heroic sacrifice.

And I...I feel as if I had fallen into the trap of my own lies. Now that I've come to writhe in the vicious cycle of paradoxes, which only after I begun to feed on your blood have I become aware of.

I liked you, so I wanted to have you close to me. I had you close to me, so for the first time in a really long while I didn't feel so lonely... – I just had a good time teasing you, pulling your leg, making up one eccentric pet-name after another, and just spending my time with you.

I liked you, so I was not allowed to have you close to me. I was not allowed to come close to you. A cursed being, and those who deal with it will inevitably be plagued with defeat and misfortune. I knew about it perfectly. It is because I was aware of that that I ran away from my King, my dearest benefactor, my foster father. In a cool, calculating manner I was certain that this time I was safe. This time I was not supposed to cast tragedy upon anyone. I was not supposed to be the witness of the fall and ailing of my dearest ones anymore – because I was not to let anyone else become dear to me.

And out of all the candidates for this uninvited place of the ones close to me, you were the man least endangered with my unwanted fondness. It was you who was introduced to me years ago as my possible enemy and irritating nuisance. It is you who is my polar opposite, and everything I'll never be, sometimes amusing me with it, sometimes irking, and sometimes just making me feel jealous.

This is why I ignored both you and the danger itself.

This is why we both end up suffering so much.

Forgive me.

I am not worthy of your sacrifice.

I am not worthy of your nobility making you fight for me, nor of your selflessness making you save me at the expense of your own sake.

Let us leave the perfect for the perfect, shall we?

Don't you think I'm going to thank you. I'm not going to feel touched and encourage you to repeat such gestures towards me in the future, either. And if there comes a day when you wish you hadn't saved me back then, then it's for the best.

And no, I'm not doing it for your sake. I'm not doing it because I'm afraid of what may happen to you if we both care for each other with equal strength, if you are my close, loyal companion. No way. I'm doing it for myself.

Because I don't want to ever again feel guilty of losing my dear one. So I'm not going to let you be dear to me, dearer than you've been before.

As you can see, I have started to bring this resolution to life immediately. I'm trying to convince myself that after all I am the type who can learn from his mistakes.

Still, I really don't know why I am trying so hard to pretend I'm asleep. Perhaps it's just that I don't want to show off my sleeplessness and make a sensation out of it. Because well, for the one who's watching over me, for you, it must be obvious that my sleep is no more than a pose. It is just one more of the lies I made up because I wanted to be left alone, and decided because of it to do anything others should expect of me, or at least to pretend I'm doing so.

I wonder what the consequences would be if you could read my thoughts? If you knew what is going through my mind right now?

Would you understand me just a little better? Would you accept my point of view, imagine what I'm going through, show me the tolerance, the approval... and let me go?

I doubt it.

After all, it's only you.

After all, it's as much as you.

**Clow Country**

I find it so strange that after all was said and done and everything we have been through, I still fail to look through you.

Even now, mind you. You seem to be sleeping so peacefully, like an innocent child who knows no sorrow, and yet I know that yours is the most alert sleep in the whole wide world. It would take no more than one subtle yet suspicious gesture to have you get up in an instant, all ready to fight, guard and protect, to be, as always...

Yourself.

And this is why I don't think anymore about running away, about trying to sneak out from here, from this room, from this bond, from you. Because try as I might, you're going to prove to me at any cost that I'm wrong anyway – that I'm not alone and never going to be so anymore. That you are not going to part from me, and that I'll always be where you are.

And since you are by nature a straightforward and unsophisticated man, your "at any cost" turns out to be very literal indeed. Thus I have to carefully make sure that your arm was the last such thing I had to give back to you, because you had lost it before for my sake, on my behalf.

"I don't regret anything" – you don't say it out loud, at least not to me, but I can see it in every look of your eyes, I can hear it in the tone of your voice. I can sense it fighting arm to arm with you, or merely spending my time with you. One could say things are back to the way they were, that they are back to normal...

...But in my eyes it is only now that I can speak of any "normal" at all. Only after the two of us have changed and matured. You accepted me, and I finally stopped my running away. Stronger with the courage that you taught me, I began to believe in myself. And - to believe in us.

Say...I have never faced such strong and painful humiliation as back then when my King showed to you and Shaoran-kun my past, baring me before the two of you, ripping me off of the remnants of my dignity, if I still had had any in your opinion at that point of time. I couldn't bring myself to look into your eyes after you found out that I had set out on our journey knowing exactly who you were, and what your story had been. Not only that; I had also been taking you for no more than an obstacle in my way, a cockroach I was allowed to tread on without remorse should he become too much of a nuisance. The encounter with my King, the brief review of my worst memories, festered like a wound that has never been dressed – all this put me in a kind of trance where I truly was only a puppet in Fei Wang's hand, a lunatic devoid of his own thoughts, opinions, and emotions, madly groping in the dark for his sole purpose, regardless of the price he'd have to pay to achieve it. It was in such a moment that I remembered you were my enemy – because you opposed me and hindered my plans – and I really believed in it indiscriminately...

But this didn't last too long.

My King died at your hand. What I felt - the pain, the despair, the bitterness - I still find impossible to express with words. But at least I finally understood that what you did was to protect me, and show me the right way was not born from your despise towards me, nor out of your will to preach about what is right and what is not allowed. This feeling is rough, at times even violent. This feeling hurts. This feeling is sometimes unfair, inconsiderate of me, puts pressure on me so hard I seem to be almost cracking – but yet I don't doubt it, I don't deny it anymore. This feeling does exist...

Your feeling for me exists. It has been there for quite some time – maybe it's been there all along? Even when you yourself didn't realize it nor want to accept it. In this respect you are not much better then I am...or maybe you are, but just a tiny, little bit better. But not all that much – I keep trying to console myself, as I gaze into the metallic radiance of your artificial arm, sparkling in the moonlight of this cloudless, desert land. I bite my lips hard as I recall how close it was...

"Go!"

I think I somehow was able to make my voice sound firm and commanding back then, just as it should have sounded in the moment I ordered you to leave me alone, so I could finally die my well-deserved death beside my beloved King. And this was not so difficult a task, I didn't even have to strain myself so much – I wonder if it was not the first time when I didn't have to play any role before you? I gave up, so sick and tired and burnt out. Burnt out to the extent I didn't feel despair nor anger. I didn't feel that I had been done wrong or mistreated. I guess I really was ready to die. I had been looking forward to my own death for almost all my life, but it was only then that I was really ready for it.

And then – suddenly the time stopped its flow. Following my voice like an echo there was the swish of your sword resounding in the air, and the heavy thud of your arm hitting the ground behind my back.

Bleeding all over, you still managed to grab me by my coat ( how can it be that facing such shock and pain you didn't even pass out? I suppose one has to be a Kuro-sama to be able to do it... ) and pulled me close to you. When something like this happens, even me – shaking all over, wet and sticky with your blood, hardly standing on my own two feet under the weight of your inert body – could not help but make once and for all a solemn resolution that since you pulled me close to yourself at such horrific cost, I am not going to stray away from you anymore at my own will.

And I'm going to keep this resolution. You'll see, I will.

I know you want to believe it just as much as I do.

"...How long are you going to stare at me like that?"

Surprised and a little frightened, I straighten my back and look at your still cunningly closed eyelids. Only now do I realize that I was leaning against you from my bed persistently so I could be comfortably looking at you. And not only that – I also placed my hand so close to yours that our hands could have touched at just about any moment. I find it most surprising and embarrassing, the fact that I was so absorbed in...you, thinking about you and observing you...that I didn't realize at all how close to you I was. It would be impossible for such an experienced warrior as yourself not to realize somebody's unusually close presence, and in the midst of the nighttime stillness to boot.

...Just like a boy caught peeping at his girl friends changing their clothes. I can feel myself flushing with a hysterical blush, and I don't like it at all. Even more so when I discover how your ruby gaze traces the look of my eyes, the expression of my face – and now I know that nothing can be hidden from you.

"Kuro-tan, you meanie!" – I whisper passionately, trying to seem amused and cover up my huge embarrassment. – "I've been just watching over you, because you might be getting a fever, or your wounds might get painful, or your back may be itching and you may want me to scratch it! I'm trying to find out your wishes even before you think of them, and this is what I get in return? You nasty Kuro-rin!"

I'm making such an idiot out of myself that seeing it even you can't help but smile. And seeing your smile – so natural and warm, even though so covert – even I can't help but return it.

"You want something from me?" – you ask me finally, after this while full of blissful silence when I was leaning against you and your smile, in your pupils I could see my own reflection and there was nothing else I really needed, and I really felt that if eternity was supposed to look like that then I would readily grab it right away.

"...Come on, I get nervous when you ask me such indiscreet questions! Why can't you be a little more delicate, Kuro-wanwan" – I retort laughingly, but I have to force myself to this laughter, as I'm starting to feel more and more stupid. I am ashamed of myself, I really feel like an unexperienced brat. I suddenly get the feeling that there are so many things I want to say only to you and do only with you right here and now, and I am so full of this feeling I could almost explode with it. And yet I lack the courage to take at the very least just this one step. I am afraid, I hesitate, I can't trust you, I can't trust me, what do I really expect, what am I counting on?... Just one big bundle of chaos.

"Rubbish" – you snort critically and shrug your shoulders. Then you turn your back to me and I feel that something I had already sensed under my fingers has begun to slip away irreversibly. Sure, not that it occurs to me that maybe I should try and stop you, pull you close to me and resume the conversation...And only my half-ironic and half-depressing thoughts persecute me and mock me, disturbing the stillness in my head. But a moment later...your voice joins them, and just like that you save me once more. – "I told you, right? If you want something, then go and get it instead of waiting for others to do it for you."

Yes, you did. A long time ago, in that country called Outo. Maybe you did not express it exactly with those words, but the meaning was the same. I remember even now so vividly the way I felt back then: misunderstood, taunted, and lonely in a horrible, intense way. I smile at this memory – one could think that the two of us today do not act in any basically different way from those two back in those days, in that scene... – and yet, who would have thought that there would ever be a night like this, and the feelings like these?

"Kuro-rin, you do know that only the brave fellows such as you do it this way. And as for others... they'd rather wait until somebody comes and takes them where they want to go." – I try to reply cheerfully, although I can feel everything growing tense inside of me.

As if the answer I am to hear right now really was to decide what the rest of my life would be...This entirely new life I have only learned to appreciate and respect and which I care for, the life that you have given to me...

You give me that look from the corner of your eye, and the witty sparkles meeting up with my scrutinizing gaze touch me deeply, make me feel all warm and fuzzy, regardless of how I hate you right now for teasing me at such a moment.

"And what do the likes of you do if at this time somebody's already waiting for them? Do they really do nothing and make him wait forever?"

...Most probably that's precisely the way it is. I felt strong, hot pressure within my throat as I realized how selfish I had been until now, how focused on me and me alone. And yet you have just as much right as I do to be afraid, to disbelieve, to be careful and keep your distance, aloof and scared...And in spite of that it has always been you who would give me his hand first, who would take one step after another in my direction, and not with pretty words, but with wonderful and indisputable deeds. I have always been in your debt, and even now I've already set my mind to rely on you like this yet again... – and tell me, what are you looking for in such a cowardly whim as myself?...

Then there is the shiver, and the hot sensation pouring slowly all over my chest, pleasant and sweet, gradually covering all of my body along with the circulation of my blood. So this is the feeling one can get when one sees your hand reaching out for me, as you move closer from under your sheets and stretch your arm towards me?...

"It...it happens to be like that, too...Because you see...Those who act like that are only lazy and lucky creatures, and they can afford the waiting anyway, because that someone...sooner or later...comes and takes them...away...with him...and from then on he's always...always with them, and..."

My voice is cracking, my hand is shaking. My eyes brim all over with piercing humidity, but that's alright, I don't care, I'm not going to hide it. You may laugh at me and take me for a cry-baby – even if that's the case, I will treasure it anyway. I don't want to hide anything. I want you to see how moved and relieved I am, how much it means to me.

It – or our hands clasped tight together, our calm, deep breaths, eyes winking in disbelief, and the moment so gorgeous, so intimidatingly beautiful that we both lack the courage to spoil it with even one word.

And so the dream is over.

I am right here.

Beside you.

I love you.

_Love, your Secret Santa._

_Christmas Eve 2009. _


End file.
